Nitish Rana of Kolkata Knight Riders walks off the field after being dismissed during the IPL 2023 cricket match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Sunday, April 16, 2023. Photo Credit: PTI
The rivalry between the two players in the Indian domestic circuit came to the fore in the IPL phase here on April 16 when Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Nitish Rana and Mumbai Indians’ Hrithik Shokin got into a first-innings war of words.
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The incident happened in the ninth over of their match at the Wankhede Stadium when the Mumbai Indians bowler hurriedly dismissed Rana after dismissing the KKR skipper, who stopped in his tracks and threw a few words at the bowler.
Shokeen had Rana caught at long-on by substitute fielder Ramandeep Singh and immediately looked in the batsman’s direction to say a few words. But as soon as Rana turned back to respond to the youngster’s allegation, Mumbai Indians’ stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav and the game’s senior-most player Piyush Chawla stepped in to defuse the tension.
It is to be noted that both Rana and Shokeen are Delhi team-mates in domestic cricket, but they don’t even speak in the dressing room. The brawl that took place on Sunday afternoon was not a one-off as there is a history between these two players.
If Rana had an ordinary game with the bat, falling for five runs off 10 balls, Shaukeen was a busy man on Sunday as he took a sharp catch to dismiss the struggling N Jagadeesan early off Cameron Green at cover point. He bounced back from 4-0. -39-2 while KKR’s all-rounder Shardul Thakur also accounted for.